Facilities managers face the daunting task of gathering information relating to the current condition of the facility and facilities systems under their management. Often, due to the overwhelming nature of the task and relatively high level of knowledge required of the vast number of facilities systems, facilities managers do not have an accurate picture of the facilities and the condition of the facilities in their care.
One of the goals of a facilities manager is to identify problems in a timely manner, remedy the identified problems at an early stage and project capital budgets so as to extend the life cycle of the facility. To accomplish these tasks, facilities managers have traditionally relied upon various calculations to manipulate Facilities Management Information (FMI) to track costs and generate capital budgets for the maintenance and construction of facilities.
However, the facilities manager typically has had to compile information in an ad hoc manner, for example, filling out paper questionnaires or check sheets related to certain buildings systems and entering the information into, for instance, a spread sheet program. Alternatively, facilities managers have had to hire outside engineers or other professionals to come into the facility to provide a report on a particular facility including the facilities system(s). However, it can be expensive to hire professionals to come into a facility, do an inspection of a particular system and/or systems and then furnish a report on the condition and expected life of the particular system(s). Still further, some facilities managers have created their own system of checking certain facilities systems and have hired personnel with particular expertise with certain systems.
All of these methods, however, are time-consuming and expensive and do not allow the facilities manager to obtain an accurate picture of the current condition of a facilities systems in a cost-effective and timely manner. In addition, the ad hoc information obtained by various facilities managers, while somewhat helpful, often is not complete nor is it provided in an industry standard format. Therefore, if a professional firm is hired to analyze the current systems in the facilities, often they must completely reevaluate the facilities systems.
Additionally, facilities managers for facilities utilized by government agencies and departments are often required to provide a building survey reports designed to meet federal mandates. For example, some mandates require government agencies and departments to collect and report information on all real estate assets owned by the federal government.